by Michael Kanellos, Brett Prior
Concentrating Solar Power [CSP] is one of our favorite renewable energy technologies, but it might be in serious trouble. And this time the culprit is not cheap natural gas, the Koch Brothers, nor the desert tortoise advocates.
This time, the adversary is the other half of the solar family.
Just to clarify, CSP includes all concentrating solar thermal (CST) technologies, such as trough, tower, and dish-engine - as well as concentrating PV (CPV) technologies including companies such as Amonix, SolFocus, and Concentrix.
The CSP industry began to flourish in the late 1980s and early 90s in California, with the construction of 354 megawatts of parabolic trough plants in the Mojave Desert.
Then, the state allowed a real estate tax exemption lapse, a change in the law that companies like Solel and Luz warned would kill them. Right after Luz ran out of money, then Governor Pete Wilson signed an extension.
A second wave began around 2004 with the revival of green technology in the state. Luz founder Arnold Goldman rounded up the old team, recruited some new execs and founded BrightSource Energy. Peter Le Lievre and a group of Australians came up with Ausra and built a plant in Las Vegas.
Advocates said that solar thermal plants, if 500 megawatts or larger, could rival natural gas in cost per kilowatt hour. Another lapse in the property tax exemption loomed, but was avoided.
But then the 2008 financial crisis hit. The sudden decline of funding hit the industry particularly hard, considering that a demo plant costs around $25mm and a commercial plant requires somewhere north of $250mm. Ausra and eSolar had to retool their strategies, while BrightSource had to sell part of its first project at Ivanpah to Bechtel.
If that weren’t enough, environmentalists and U.S. Senator Dianne
